Intern End
by Pbun
Summary: A geeky intern "steps in it"-and much follows from what may or may not be a discovery.
1. Chapter 1

**This is the beginning of a much larger work. I welcome your feedback. **

**-1-**

**Peter**

_**August, 2020**_

It would be the last good morning in Peter's life. Peter lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondering if space aliens would really be capable of interstellar travel. Then his alarm buzzed, letting him know it was 6:30 am.

Peter Felton was a graduate student in physics, and he was spending a lonely summer at school completing an internship for a little money and a little school credit. The last Friday in August was also his last day as an intern. Next week would be a break-week then school would start again. It would be Peter's fifth year at the University, and his first as a graduate student.

Having been raised in Massachusetts, and then spending six years in the Southern California coastal college community, he had grown to appreciate the stretches of weather where it was warm at day break. If you worked late and needed to rise early, the warm weather made it easy. Not at all like the cold weather of Boston where the last thing a body wanted to do was take the covers off in the winter. Even worst was the summer, where you didn't want to leave the room with the AC. Southern California weather was bliss.

Peter rose from bed wearing briefs-once white, now grey and maybe beige. He put into the same pair of khaki shorts he wore everyday for the past two weeks. His favorites black tee-shirt lay on a bean bag that was by the window. The shirt was crisp and dry, like it had come from a dryer, except it had only sat in sunshine the previous day. The sun evaporated the sweat, leaving behind a little salt. It smelled clean enough, and it was black, so it was good enough to be worn. At least he had another week before Melinda came back, then maybe he would need to hit the laundry mat. The fashion faux pas was complete with white socks and sandals. He combed his hair to the side and used a little gel because it was too long. Breakfast was a cup of dried fruit loops. At 6:45, he was out the door into the still and lifeless college town, only one-quarter occupied with summer school slackers and late night party animals.

Outside, Peter unlocked his bike and slapped the bike lock in his backpack with a couple of fluid hand movements. He rode through an unkempt lawn, jumped over a curb, avoiding a dog pile and rode in the street.

The ocean had its unseen presence, behind a row of houses that lined the road to campus. Peter came to college with issues- too tense, too moody and a little unhappy. Even though he spent every minute of his student life just yards from the ocean, he hardly ever went to the beach, never went in the water, only actually saw the ocean water maybe every other day. But he loved the ocean because he could feel it, hear it, and all this made him less tense, less moody and more happy. Maybe he would actually spend a day on the beach if he could do something about his white skin and featureless body.

Greek letters lined some of the homes. None of the Greek letters had ever been relevant to Peter in his six years of college. Pack living, or "duding it" as his friend Matt would say, was not his style.

It was 7:00 am and somewhere a sorority girl was walking home. One of the geeks against Greek jokes. For all the geeks knew, sorority girls were chaste. He had no way of knowing. No geek did. In his mind, Peter was the ultimate of geeks, and he was lucky he had a girlfriend, let alone one that was actually something to brag about. Melinda was smart and strong. And pretty.

Four and a half years ago, Peter arrived at the University, an east coast implant who could have gone to more prestigious universities closer to home. But a whim had taken over when Peter was in high school. He had no friends, at least none that he liked all that much. No girlfriend. And if he stayed near home, it would be more of the same. Worried parents, worried about his social life, worried about his depression. Most of all, he had gotten bored, like depressed people do. He thought he would try something new and different. So he applied to a southern California University, a public university with a beach front. He had never seen it in person, just online, and it had looked fabulous. He told his parents he was only applying for fun, as a backup. But he had made his mind up a long time ago to go somewhere far away and try something new and different. A change from the everyday habits that had made him a depressed withdrawn geek that underperformed at school. He never thought about whether he made the right decision, but years later, when it came time to leave, he didn't want to. He was still withdrawn and geeky. But he had discovered his intellectual passion, at least for some subjects, and he had a girlfriend, something that was inconceivable to him just a few years ago. In college, he majored in Physics, and along the way, he discovered astronomy and theoretical physics. "The science of prediction," his favorite professor had said. "We don't observe our environment, we imagine it."

In his final year, he had applied for the doctorate program. Peter told friends and family that he stayed for his doctoral degree because he wanted four more years of sun and the ocean. But that wasn't true. His school was one of the top programs for astrophysics, and any aspiring student with his interest would want to attend the school. That was more true, but maybe not the whole truth, because Peter could have gone to an even better program. The whole truth was that Peter's girlfriend was still an undergrad, and he was not ready to move away at the risk of losing her. Maybe she was not his last girlfriend, but he couldn't think past her. That was the secret. He wasn't sure if he fooled his parents, but he sure hoped he fooled Melinda, because he suspected she was not nearly as attached as he was. Peter had been Melinda's private math tutor more than two years earlier. They had started dating soon after she got an A in the class. Now, two years later, he was fully vested. She probably wasn't. She had no problem going home to San Francisco for the summer. She was good at calling every couple of days, but she didn't like talking every day. When they talked on the phone, she had no problem switching over to another call, and then telling Peter she had to go. She was definitely not as attached as Peter.

Now Peter was a graduate, waiting for the start of the graduate program. At the start of summer, Peter had the choice to stay on campus, or go home. But he chose to take an internship with Plaxx Labs, at a local office that was just a mile and a half from the University. The internship was not prestigious by any stretch. Peter suspected they only had 1-2 applicants each year. It was a low paying job, but came with units which he could presumably use for his graduate studies.

His bike rattled and shimmed, having been beat up and destroyed over the past year by party goers and other bikers. But he moved fast. Skinny kids always knew how to pedal fast. When Peter hit a curb, he fell off his seat and landed heavy on one testicle. He decided to slow down a little, riding in pain and with a grimace. Within five minutes he was through campus and cruising the bike trail next to the freeway. By 7:20, he was in the parking lot of the Plaxx, its brown featureless buildings looked like something from an Army camp. Plaxx was an institution that emphasized its academics, but it had many centers across the state, and it's most noteworthy accomplishment was the research some of its scientists had done in the field of nuclear fission. The building in front of Peter, however, contained no such controversy. Rather it contained the scientific arm that studied images of the sky.

Peter knew of another guy named Cliff who had done the same internship a year earlier. Cliff had been a Junior, not a graduate student like Peter. He had told Peter that he drank coffee all day to keep awake because he drank beer all night every night. Peter wanted to know what it was like to work at Plaxx. Cliff said "I changed paper _and_ toner."

But summer slacking was not in Peter's DNA. This was going to be Peter's first real opportunity to study the universe. This was his passion. Plaxx operated one of the largest infrared optical telescopes in the world, situated on the top of the Andes Mountains in Chile. They had a small team of astronomers on site in Chile to operate the telescope. An academic could have access to the telescope if they prepared a proposal that was reviewed and approved by Plaxx researchers. Peter wanted to learn how to write a proposal, to see how they were peer-reviewed, to see the raw data, to understand the process for being able to use the powerful telescopes of the world. He would have his chance soon, as a PhD student. But Plaxx was a primer, if even that. Little of what he really wanted to do was available to him as an intern. Peter recalled his first day, when the Director Henrik Klaus loudly welcomed him to Plaxx and introduced him to his team. He pointed Peter to an intern binder. The binderwas filled with little work sheets that identified intern projects. The projects were written in paragraph form and were filled with condescending questions, like what could be learned, what changes could be made to verify the results and on and on. Kind of like third-grade science workbooks for adults. Out of determination to work with telescopes, he started his own project.

The project had started with a story Peter had heard that was more like an urban legend. An urban legend for astrophysicists. The story went like this. A few years back, two Italian astronomers ran into a well respected Japanese astronomer. They were at a conference in Milan. The Japanese astronomer excitedly told them that he had observed something relatively large and massive, more like a black hole than anything else, just outside of the solar system. He had promised his colleagues he would send them information, but when he left the conference, his plane crashed and he died. His colleagues were intrigued enough to look at the quadrant the man had mentioned-he had, after all, been a well-respected astronomer. But no one was able to see what he was able to see. There was nothing there. But then, the solar system was a very large area. The Japanese astronomer had pointed to a region in the interstellar medium, almost five times the distance between Pluto and the Sun. Peter recalled an educational demonstration that served as an intro to the size of the Solar System. The sun was an orange, the Earth was a peppercorn several paces from the orange. The interstellar medium where the object was supposed to have been seen would be 2.5 miles from the orange.


	2. Chapter 2

A good story. Peter used his newly assigned Plaxx email address and intern title to good use, sending inquiries to the Italian astronomers. To his surprise, one of the Italians did return his email. It was a lengthy email that detailed where the encounter occurred, the details in what the Japanese astronomer had said. The Italian astronomer ended his email with

_I studied with Yoshi Yanagida for three years at University Paris. Yoshi was quiet and reserved, not excitable like I saw him that day. And he was not someone who was wrong. I wish I could find what he was talking about. It is a puzzle. If he says he found something, then I believe it was there. Please keep me informed on your studies Peter._

_Dr. Eduard Paulucci_

Paulucci's email had woken Peter up from an intern slumber. Holy ***, a mystery…. Peter doubled his efforts. He prepared an intern project request describing his intern project as a study for unknown objects in the quadrant Paulucci had told him to look at. There had never been any response to his project request. Just nods from the engineering nerds and scientist who scuttled about in nearby cubicles, nods from the director, coffee from his mentor, some hellos and some how-are-yous. When he would send an email, he would get a reply like "Go for it," although he never received a reply to his project request. In the weeks that followed the Paulucci email, Peter tediously pulled the required permissions to access the vast library of raw data and images. For data more than a year old, he had free access. For more recent data, he needed permission, which he sought initially. As time passed, he learned that he could access any data he wanted using the same password he received the first time he made his request. He used the raw data, the image analysis algorithms, and Matlab, looking for evidence of the black hole where one was not known to ever exist. A black hole that was too close to the solar system. Something that would be scary if it existed.

A few weeks in, Peter changed tactic. He reviewed the email from Paulucci again and was struck by "I believe it was there." Not is, but was. Maybe Paulucci was telling him something, or telling him about a suspicion. Maybe Paulucci was guiding him on how to proceed. From then, Peter stopped looking for it, but looked for evidence it had existed, even if it was just years ago. Then one night, he hacked into the administrator settings of his account with Plaxx and changed his permission settings so that he could use the control module for the optical telescope Plaxx maintained on Mount Shasta. Peter logged in each night after 10 PM, and used a 30-minute window to take images of objects in the scattered disk region of the solar system. After he took the images., he would login as a guest on one of the more powerful work stations and analyze the images he found. The scattered disk region was inside the solar system, far from where the Yanagida's object was spotted, but close enough to feel the presence of something like a black hole. Peter had picked the particular region for his images because there were images on file from ten years earlier. Peter downloaded his images to a stick drive, then ran them through his own modified image processing algorithm. He compared the objects to the images taken ten years ago. Peter used the telescope to eventually find two large asteroids that had enough signature qualities for comparison with the archive images. He was able to find the asteroids in archive images. And they had changed. Before, they each had a different shape, size and rotation angles. Now they seemed to have similar rotations, and their rotations different from what they had before. Something had pulled them at the same time.

Before he had started his internship, he had only thought of using the job as a nice segway to his graduate studies. Whatever the internship had become, it was no longer a segway, because he needed to keep working on his research. Until the last week of his internship, Peter thought no one was paying any attention to him. Then he had received Klaus' email. A perfunctory email from Henrik Klaus, informing him that he had to write-up his research in a report for review. Not what he had expected. Cliff never mentioned a report.

He had given some brief thought on how much to water down the report. He wanted to give himself the option to pursue the project on his own. After some debate, he decided to include all his work, except for Paulucci's email. Best to be upfront.

He rode to Plaxx on his last day with a copy of his report crammed in his backpack. He would read it again before meeting Klaus. It was a matter of pride that he would be ready for the last review, answer all the questions, be impressive. There were 20 pages in the report, with graphs and some raw data of a region outside of the solar system. He was pretty sure it was the most interesting internship report Klaus will see. More likely it would be skimmed and tossed, which was fine because Peter wanted to research his new-found topic at the University, where he would get more credit. Plaxx would give him a footnote somewhere if they took it.

Peter walked fast through the lobby and to his cubicle. It was too early. Scientists were only a little better than college kids. They came in at 9am. Peter went to his station and reviewed his report again, cursing at two typos that had snuck in to his equations.

It was almost time, and Peter wrapped up his work and arrived to Klaus' door early, suddenly nervous. Maybe he needed to worry about his data, or how he had gotten the data at the start, when he had hacked his administrator settings. But how would Klaus know? And that was weeks ago. And once he found the data, he had requested it again formally through Ross Macon, who had access to the control module. His report cited data from Ross. He would be OK.

The office door was open, but Klaus was not in the office. Peter waited outside, struck by how small and closed off the office was. The blinds were shut, even though they had a distant ocean view. The lighting of the office was fluorescent and unnatural, but just outside the blinds, the sun shone on a beautiful morning. The office was messy, but not for any reason that he could pinpoint. As Peter sat there and stared into the office, wondering about some of the strangeness in the office, he heard shuffling of feet on carpet to his right.

"Good morning Peter." Klaus approached from the darkened hall, unemotional and smiling. Holding a mug of coffee that looked cold and disgusting. Peter wondered why did the man would drink such cold coffee when he had access to a vat of hot coffee just down the hall? As Klaus walked by, his smile stayed fixed, even after he passed Peter and did a precise 90 degree turn to his chair.

Peter followed Klaus into the office and sat down without being asked. Then Klaus motioned for him to sit down. He sat down too and immediately turned to his monitor, which had been asleep. Without speaking, he tapped in his login and password. Peter just waited.

"What can I do for you, Peter?"

Peter paused. "I am not sure, I thought this is a meeting you wanted-it's my last day today."

"Oh is it? That's right." Klaus looked briefly at Peter. "Well then the talk is moot. Everyone who works with us, whether paid scientist or intern, has an obligation here. Be productive. Be smart. Have pride." Klaus stopped and stared.

"Right," Peter said.

"That's all."

Peter looked. "What did you want to speak to me about?"

"What I just said."

"OK, but what does that have to do with me?"

Klaus eyes rolled up and then down. "I guess it means that we had expected you to be productive when you were here. You understand, what you do here, what you say about our program, it affects how others will think of us."

Be smart…what the hell. Peter's eyes jotted around, looking dismayed. "I am not sure what you mean Klaus, I worked very hard here. I wrote you this report, I emailed an abstract of it last week. I have given you progress reports-"

"We have an intern binder, one that lists projects we think you should work on."

Peter felt a rise in emotion. He paused before speaking again. "It was explained to me that the intern binder was an advisory, and the projects listed in it were freshman level. And when I got here, I talked about what I was doing with everyone. I put in my project request and no one ever responded. And I thought you would appreciate a more serious endeavor."

Klaus smirked briefly, but then his eyes wondered to his screen. While Peter spoke, Klaus tapped his mouse and keyboard. He started reading something. After a few seconds, it became clear that Klaus was not going to respond. Peter was not even sure if Klaus had heard him.

"Hey, I just told you something important. Did you listen?"

Klaus smiled, but it took him a few seconds to look over. "Your report?" Peter sat forward in his seat, waiting. "I had not thought of it as a serious endeavor. I am sorry you worked so hard on it." Then Peter fell back in his chair, shocked.

"Did you read it?"

A nod from Klaus, but his eyes never left the monitor.

"I don't think you did."

"I did. I reviewed it. And the Abstract. And it was circulated."

"You didn't get any feedback?"

"None." He smiled while working the mouse. "Usually we get some, but like I said-" Then there was a pause which went on for too long, almost like Peter had left the room.

Peter waited, hoping Klaus would finish his sentence. Eventually, he said "Really? Because I think previous interns here didn't prepare reports or do any research."

"You are misinformed." Silence as Klaus tapped his keyboard.

"Are we done?" Peter rose to leave.

"I need to give you your evaluation." Klaus moved an envelope across his desk to Peter. Peter stared at it. Evaluation, a grade. With internship came units, and with units came grades. Peter opened the envelope, staring at Klaus, mindful that his internship was through the graduate program. He stared blankly at a C, with a list of comments: "Poor initiative…Poor work…absent."

Peter felt a rush of different feelings. First, fear. He never had even a B before this. And for a graduate student, C was not good. Graduate students should never receive a B. Then right after fear, Peter felt rage.

"I don't understand. I spent 80 hours here last week. How could you say I was absent?"

Klaus did not respond. He stared at his screen and tapped his mouse. Peter seethed. He sat up, put his hand on Klaus' desk. "You're an idiot Klaus. An idiot. Fuck-off." Somewhere in his head he heard his girlfriend say "Oh-oh, count to five." But the girlfriend voice was talking to him a few seconds too late. He was down to primitive non-intellectual speak. Like an ape, he slapped Klaus's pen holder against the wall and stormed out.

He returned to his desk to pick up his things. He logged into his account to delete his personal email. Within a minute, before deleting even one email, his computer froze and he was logged off. Right then, Peter realized he was fired. On his last day. He sat at his desk for four whole minutes before he heard a knock and a man in a white security uniform. His belt carried a Taser.


	3. Chapter 3

In the days that followed Plaxx, Peter stayed in his dingy apartment, he stopped going outside, and he stopped eating meals. Melinda was with her family and they spoke on the phone. Within a week, he emerged long enough from the darkness to walk to his advisor's office. He was not sure how he would explain the events. Maybe he could simply state that he got into an altercation with the director, making clear the altercation was not violent, but driven by rudeness, ignorance and stupidity on the part of Klaus. But he was ashamed at his summer project. Klaus had left him feeling like an idiot. How would he explain himself? At best, he spent a summer jerking off on a theory that went nowhere. He didn't have enough self-esteem to whether that thought.

Peters advisor was another hard ass German or Austrian or whatever, Professor Mathias Durgen. Peter met him at his office in the Physics department. Peter knew Durgen for having an ego. He was young for a tenured professor, ultra-studious and very serious. His blond curly hair short and cropped. He was skinny, and wore a belted trouser with a JCP Penny shirt.

When Peter met with him, Peter had the familiar feeling then the Mathias somehow already knew about the incident. And he did.

"I have received a letter that is very problematic, Peter." He opened the letter, with a large 'P' on its letterhead. On the bottom, Peter could make out a large letter K -'K' for Klaus. One German brother to another. While Mathias read, part of Peter's mind checked out. Another part, though engaged long enough to wonder why Klaus wrote so badly. Mathias read, "Mr. Felton displayed in immature and threatening demeanor in my office. He displayed a poor ability to take criticism, which admittedly, was very frank. Mr. Felton spent the summer indulging himself on strange theories and speculation. There was no merit to his work whatsoever. He was advised on easy projects that other students, many of only the undergraduate level, easily completed recently in the past. He showed no ability to complete such projects, and he did not work effectively on his pet project, which at best is fanciful." Mathias struggled a little with the grammar and wording, but continued. "I am concerned that such an individual at your University would be a waste for someone more deserving."

Waste…"Can I just tell you what happened?"

Mathias held his hand up. "This letter is … over the top. It's surprising from Klaus, whom I schooled with, I can read it and see something personal and unprofessional." He paused, "which is strange because he does not have much personality to be personal."

"I slapped his cup into the wall."

Mathias shrugged. "An undergraduate called me 'motherfucker' last year, and I still gave him a B+. You didn't hurt Klaus. This internship is not one that requires students to perform at any great level. So I don't know what to say. I don't agree with Klaus, but is it going to make a difference? Your reputation will take a hit. This internship was a nice job. But our professors in this department work with Plaxx. They have grants that need Plaxx. And Klaus, is really upset with you."

"What does that mean?"

"I am speaking as your advisor. PhD programs are political. Students in PhD programs are pawns of politics, vendettas…all this means is that you're probably going to have political problems in our department. Maybe it will take you a couple years longer to get the degree. Maybe you will be the rare student who can't defend his thesis, maybe you won't get a paid research assistant position. Maybe all this will be forgotten. All that I am saying is that it is possible that life has gotten harder for you."

Peter wanted to go back to his room and sleep in his bed. "So what does that mean?"

"I don't know. You go home and think about it."

When Peter went home, he left Melinda a voicemail. "Hey, I just met with Mathias. He thinks I should just give up school. Anyway, I have too many problems. I don't think we should see each other anymore. I am not worth it. Sorry." After he left the voicemail, he realized she would be arriving that night. He had lost track of days. He stayed in his bed, watching the room get dark. At some point, he fell into a trance and there was a knock on his door.

It was Melinda. "You are going to have to do better than that to get rid of me." She let herself in, and looked great. Long brown hair and the smile. But then she looked around the room, and her face frowned-a little disgusted. "Peter, get some clean clothes on and lets go grab a pizza." For the first time, Peter felt something that lifted his gloom. He minded her and they went to pizza. Then he went home with her and stayed in her apartment. She had a roommate who wouldn't come back for another week.

Over the course of the next week, Melinda kept him company as much as she could, while she prepared for her senior year with errands and shopping. Peter spent most of the time in his room, looking over his notes from the summer. He wasn't fired because of his project. He was fired because he knocked over Klaus' pencil cup. He looked over the legal statute, and decided that didn't even constitute assault. He located his employment agreement, which he never signed, and found a specific paragraph which he violated. Conduct that was professional, non-threatening… the last part made him think there had been others who had done things that were threatening. All this assumed they did not know about the memory stick. But how could that be an issue now, when he received the same data the right way?

By the end of the first week, Peter decided he would drop from the PhD program. Mathias had been frank with him, and he needed to listen. He told Melinda that he would sign up with another university the next fall. But inside, he felt he was done with academia. He didn't have what it took. He was filled with fanciful ideas. He was not a scientist.

When he made his decision, he left his apartment and had a beer with Melinda and Matt. Matt was tall and geeky, and he knew how to sidetrack everyone. He was safe, for Melinda anyway. She liked to have him around, because he made her laugh. At least for an hour or so.

The pool hall played the music loud, and Melinda and Matt shot pool. Peter drank appear in the corner, sort of to himself, trying to smile and preserve the image. Him he watched on the pool balls inside the triangle. She moved around and said, "Hey Matt, you are so smart, what do they call this thingy?"

In a dead serious tone, Matt said "the triangle thing."

Peter sat staring at the triangle of the balls inside, slowing the moves the set of balls the center of the pool table. Even with three beers, his mind started the move. He picked up a set of darts and started throwing them on the board. There was a sudden convergence of ideas in his head. A leap in logic, a next step. A theory but an answer too. Peter did a mental check on himself. Even though Peter was in the PhD program, he was not one of the smartest kids in class. Peter always thought what made him talented, may be even exceptional, was that he could put ideas together and take a leap of imagination with them.

So maybe he wasn't full of shit and fancy. Because suddenly, Yoshi's discovery made sense. Peter's solution didn't really matter one way or the other. He thought of the triangle, and the way the ball moved on the table. He threw a set of darts blind listening, over and over, thinking it through. Black holes didn't come and go. That was a fact. But the triangle thing….Peter slapped darts over and over. Matt and Melinda looked over, and he ignored them. "He'll get over it," Matt said.

Over the next couple of days, Peter was online, sending a flurry of emails to the Italians, to school professors, to institutions that had the high power telescopes. He needed more information. He had given up on science and proof, peer review and hypothesis and all that bull shit. He didn't think of academia credit, career objectives, academic glamour. He worked out of fascination and fear. Fascinated because something not natural might be taking place. Scared by what it meant. Peter spent hours in the computer lab, pulling images from both inside and outside of the solar system, working out orbits, putting Newtonian formulas to work on his computer, plotting courses. Hours passed. Days passed. Peter would peel himself off his chair and use the bathroom, drink coke or snack. Peter saw his professors when he walked into the computer lab and he mostly ignored them. He also saw his would-be classmates, some of whom were undergraduates on their fifth year. He ignored all of them. He had his university account and his access card and that was what mattered. When he was home, he told Melinda that he was starting a new project on his own, and that he was helping himself get over his issues. He needed computer time, data and her companionship. Everything else could wait.

Weeks passed, as Peter doubled and tripled his efforts in the computer lab. The quarter had started, courses were in full swing. Peter had not formally withdrawn, he had not even told anyone his intent to do so, so his presence in the computer lab each day was strange to some. Sometimes he remembered he was still enrolled, and he was technically failing class. But he just worked.

And at 11:17 am on a Friday, one fine day in October, he found it. It was amazing and terrifying, or was it. He didn't know. The contradiction he felt became more acute when he noticed he was smiling. A weight had been lifted from his shoulder, he had discovered something significant, something that was not fanciful.

He saved his files on a thumb drive, made a second online backup, then emailed himself a third backup. It was not yet noon, he went home feeling light, relieved and worried. Klaus is an idiot.

In his apartment, Peter put the blinds down and fell into his bed. The comfortable dingy sheets that felt cold to his skin. Within minutes, he was sound asleep. He had a nightmare where he was standing behind someone who was watching him sleep in his own bed. It was real-time. The person he was watching stood motionless, almost invisible. The room was dark, and the small man was just a shadow, his narrow shoulders and head were what Peter could see. Then Peter heard a clicking sound, and he woke because he actually heard the sound. Or at least he thought he did. In an instant, he saw everything red, so much that it overwhelmed everything about him. And then his eyes were open. There was silence and a dark room.

Peter reached for his phone and checked his text message. He had received 4 from Mindy, the last saying "Where r u?" It was after 5 PMand he was hungry and thirsty. He texted her "Pizza? 5:30." And before he had a chance to put the phone down, he received "K".

At dinner, they ordered a large pepperoni and two diet sodas. Peter was on his third piece, and Mindy was still eating her first.

"What happened to you today? I thought we would be spending a little time together before I leave tomorrow."

Shit, Peter thought. He forgot about her trip to Seattle to visit her sister. "Sorry, hon. Today was unreal. I'll give you a short version OK? Long version is too complicated. You know what I was talking about in the summer? The project with Plaxx?"

"I knew you were still working on that. Good for you."

"Not really. I got this idea, from Matt and you really, anyway I went from trying to show this thing existed to trying to think what it could be, then thinking why it was there and what purpose it would serve."

"That's a lot of thinking."

"I kind of thought of that all at once. I actually been spending my time looking for the output, the proof."

"OK. Good job. Hey, guess what, looks like-"

"I am not done yet."

"Yea, I figured. Go ahead Peter. Its all about you!" She smiled, Peter felt bad, but he cracked a smile. "I hate to hear the long version." She let out a couple of snorts.

"OK, the Japanese guy did see a …this thingy. Super dense, spinning fast, very black. He thought it was a black hole. I thought he saw a black hole. He thought he saw a black hole."

"Are you talking about the guy's shower…"

"Shut up. OK, then I thought here is something that if it was there all this time, we would have seen it before. So it was not there until recently. And when we went to look at it, it was gone. But I saw evidence of it. It had been there. So what was it?"

She shrugged. Peter continued, "This is where I give you credit for talking about the 'triangle thingy'-something that carries something else in it and then gets taken away. Out in space, there once was this thing that spins real fast, dense as heck… they call them 'wormholes', which are theoretical-until now."

"What is a wormhole you may ask?"

Melinda paused, "What is a wormhole I ask?"

"Its this thing that lets you travel from one point to the next without going in between."

"You discovered a wormhole? You going to get a Nobel out of this?" She did a silent clap with her hands, sort of sarcastically. Peter hoped she was not sarcastic. He always had a fear, something like one day she would tell him she had been banging a jock behind his back and would listen to him as a joke. He was not entirely sure, but he plowed ahead, telling her more.

"I did discover the wormhole. But there is a problem. A wormhole is not natural. The theory is that it would need to be created artificially."

Melinda chewed on her pizza. Sort of interested. Peter repeated the significant part of his story. "Unnaturally."

"I heard you." More chewing.

"Jesus, ok. In theory you create one with two large spinning masses, The Japanese guy saw one."

"He saw two large spinning masses?

"No that is what you use to create the wormhole. I think he saw-observed the wormhole."

"Where did it go?"

"It served its purpose. To let someone travel through it without losing time."

Melinda swallowed her pizza.

"I found it. I never saw the wormhole. It was closed or whatever. But I been looking for something moving fast, something that came from where the wormhole was."

She scrunched her nose. "Seems like a tough thing to find."

"It was. But I had to put my investigative hat on. Why would someone want to come through that wormhole? What is so interesting about our solar system?"

"I am afraid to ask."

"Us. Here." He spread his arms, then pointed to the table and her plate. "Pizza… earth."

She need more explanation, and Peter gave it. "To come to Earth. I knew where it started and assumed where it was going. I guessed its speed and looked and looked and sure enough, there is something out there. I think its heading this way."

"What does that mean? Alien invasion?" She smiled, almost forcing a giggle, her eyes a little wild. Here it goes, Peter thought.\"That is one explanation." Peter sat for a moment, then said "Its actually my only explanation." There was a long silence. Peter looked at the pizza, while she stared with a blank look. Peter was hungry and took two bites waiting for her to come around.

"Aren't you a little worried?" she asked.

"Yea, but I don't know, its like the scientist of me is out now. I can breath again. But shit, yes, its scary, I guess."

"You sure about this?"

"I got a picture of an alien ship in my room." Peter smiled, but she didn't, so he had the last piece.


End file.
